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January 29, 2007

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 goes primetime

After a tremendously successful beta program that saw more than 1.4 million downloads from Adobe Labs, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 has been officially announced. The press release lists a number of new features and improvements added since the most recent beta drop, and a new product page includes a tour and more details.

Some details:

Lightroom 1.0 will be sold for $299 USD. We recognize the investment users have made in Adobe tools, including the time invested by the more than 500,000 people who downloaded the beta. To say thanks, Adobe
will be offering a one time introductory price of $199 that ends April 30th.

It will not be bundled or packaged with Photoshop CS3 or the Creative Suite.

French and German versions of Lightroom 1.0 will be available at the end
of February. Introductory price of 174 Euros until June 28th, after which the standard pricing
249 Euros.

A Japanese version will be available at the end of
March. Introductory pricing of 22,000 Yen runs until July 23rd, after which the app costs 32,000 Yen.

Also, Lightroom PM Tom Hogarty reports that the new version includes preliminary support for PhaseOne camera backs.

In conjunction with the release, the NAPP has announced a new Lightroom learning center, and I see that Uwe Steinmueller has posted a review. I’ll try to link to additional resources as I get time online. Feel free to list good ones you find via the comments.

Comments

Philip Colmer — 4:34 AM on January 29, 2007

A question: as it isn’t being bundled with Photoshop or Creative Suite, does that mean that these products will provide all of the functionality and features of Lightroom, or is it more the case that they do different things?[It’s a question of integration and flow. The Camera Raw engine, which is part of Photoshop and Bridge, shares the same engine as Lightroom’s Develop module. In that respect, yes, the same capabilities are in the Photoshop (and thus Suite) box.But Lightroom’s value isn’t just about the adjustment tools. It’s about flow from import through editing, adjustment, and output. In that regard Lightroom can focus exclusively on photographers, whereas Bridge needs to address a wide variety of user types & scenarios. Therefore Lightroom can offer a degree of flow that goes beyond Bridge.Does that make sense? This isn’t a question I can answer as simply as I’d like. The trade-off is that you now have options–to use Lightroom, Bridge, or both. –J.]

Julian — 5:16 AM on January 29, 2007

Even giving Adobe the benefit of exchange rate fluctuations, I see that you are charging UK and European customers more than their US counterparts – pity you can’t be fair with your non-US pricing. Still you’re not alone – Microsoft do the same thing.

chris — 5:32 AM on January 29, 2007

When will the product be shipped from Adobe Store? When will it be available for purchase in the stores?[Tom Hogarty writes, “You can pre-order LR1.0 from the Adobe Store as of last night. It ships on 2/19. For those that would like to purchase the product at retail and don’t want to run into the 2/28 expiration date of beta 4.1 we’ll have the 30-day trial available on 2/19 as well.” –J.]

I’ve been unable to get a clear answer from the product website and am hoping you can clarify: do you know if Lightroom can read ACR3’s metadata (including RAW adjustments)? I know this is a feature that has been repeatedly promised during LR’s development, but the product website seems to glaze over the topic and the exact integration is ambiguous. Obviously, it’ll be tough to go to LR if it is incompatible with past edits made in Bridge/ACR.[Sorry that we haven’t been clearer. Lightroom and ACR *will* be compatible. What I don’t know is whether they are compatible yet. But by the time LR1 and Photoshop CS3 are shipping, the settings will be readable/writeable by both apps.Here’s the word from Tom Hogarty:“Upon import, Lightroom will respect and match the settings of all images edited by previous versions of Camera Raw. Similarly, upon import, Lightroom 1.0 will recognize and respect all settings made in Camera Raw 4.0 released with the Photoshop CS3 beta. Compatibility will also be maintained once the final version of Photoshop CS3 and Camera Raw 4.0 are finalized.“Camera Raw 3.7 will be made available at the time of the Lightroom 1.0 release in mid-February and will respect all of the edits made in Lightroom 1.0.(XMP metadata must be written to the file system by Lightroom in order to ensure cross-application compatibility. See Lightroom’s 1.0 Readme upon release for more details)
“Compatibility between Lightroom and Camera Raw has always been a clear requirement from the professional photography community and Adobe looks forward to supporting multiple workflows in order to ensure that the needs of individual photographers are met.” –J.]]

Claudio — 8:50 AM on January 29, 2007

Windows Vista deal breaker!
I was very surprised to see this in the FAQ:
Does Lightroom run on Windows Vista?
Photoshop Lightroom is designed to run on Windows XP and although not yet certified for Windows Vista, Lightroom will run on the newer operating system. (CD/DVD burning technology is not functional on Windows Vista).
Can you address this issue on your blog and perhaps tell users when Adobe plans to make Lightroom fully Vista compatible.[It’s very hard for Adobe QE to sign off on a statement of “we guarantee compatibility” until Vista is a shipping OS–and of course the timing is terrible as they’re both due to hit at essentially the same time. Anyway, I’ll look into it and see whether I can get more info to post here. –J.

Is it still true that Rawshooters Professional users get a free license?[Yes: RawShooter Premium customers will be able to download Lightroom. They will be contacted once LR ships later this month. –J.]

hcubell — 10:59 AM on January 29, 2007

Will Lightroom also provide raw file support for the Hasselblad line of digital backs?[The initial version of Lightroom 1.0 that ships later this month will not have support for the Hasselblad proprietary raw file format. Adobe
adds support for proprietary raw file formats on a regular basis and will include support as quickly as possible. –J.]

Kudo’s to Adobe for the beta tester thank you on the product page. That was a very classy move.
I placed my order last night. I just hope for us beta testers, the migration from beta to GA is seamless and has not issues with beta libraries. Also, I read that the ACR will be compatible with CS2 but will it also be compatible with CS3 betas or do we have to wait for the GA release of that too?[Sorry, I’m not sure what “GA” refers to. As for CS2/CS3 compatibility, the way things generally work is that older versions can understand the settings that correspond to tools that exist in the older version. So ACR in CS2 would understand Exposure settings, for example, from CS3 or Lightroom, but not Fill Light. –J.]

Hi John. Will version 1.0 address the issue of slow speed that many users (especially Windows users) experienced with the beta versions???
Many users who have speedy PCs experienced speed issues so severe that they found the beta versions unusable. They will be wary of buying ver 1.0 if Adobe doesn’t assure that the problem has been resolved.
Thanks![John, tuning performance is our priority now, and photographers will have a chance to try the shipping 1.0 product before trying it. –J.]

John,
Sorry about GA. Generally available release.[Ah, gotcha. FWIW, we use the term “GM” (Gold Master) for naming the final bits that we send to manufacturing. –J.]

dd — 6:30 AM on January 31, 2007

i still hate adobe’ outdated licensing model which requires buying same application TWICE to be running on ONE mac when used with macosx and windows dualboot :( ..pleease – solve this for CS3 at least..

John,
What does Lightroom do that Bridge and Camera Raw combined don’t do?
I have use Photshop since 1.7.[Offhand, LR uses a database for managing large image collections (unlike Bridge, which is at heart a file browser); stores multiple versions per file; offers more photography-focused tools for flagging & comparing images; and integrates Web output & contact sheet printing.There are other features as well, but again, the team is trying to think less about filling out a checklist than about integrating things in a way that’s entirely smooth & efficient from a photographer’s point of view. –J.]

Hani Alex Latif — 10:27 AM on February 13, 2007

I’ve ordered mu boxed Adobe LR a few days ago and am looking forward to getting it. BUT, my question is: where does LR store the data files containing all my library data so that I can back it up, if I needed to?[You can specify the location of the library (or libraries) that LR uses, and it offers options for backing them up automatically. –J.]
By the way: Buying CS2, LR and CS3 once it’s released, is the best spent money by anyone who seeks perfection in digital image manipulation. Thanks Adobe, and keep it up![Cool! We’ll do our best. :-) –J.]

KVS Setty — 7:06 AM on February 14, 2007

I could list atlest two other web sites giving very good video tutorials and tips on forhcoming Adobe Lightroom1.0.
they are:(in no preference order)
“www.lightroomkillertips.com” by Mr. Matt.
And another one from MR.Michael Tapes ie”www.rawworkflow.com”.
And I want to thank them both for providing such a help and favour to the photographic community.

I’ve recently downloaded Lightroom on my PC and have noticed it take three second to load each individaul RAW file. I’ve also received two error message 1)Statement has been finalised. 2) Out of memory. My system has 2 gig of RAM and 800gig of memory. Is there another way to view RAW files in Lightroom?
Kind Regards]
Chris[Let me see what I can find out. –J.]

Guys,
Before I start this rant… I LOVE LIGHTROOM… but no more ADOBE, I cannot stand it anymore… sort out the OOM errors now, before I put my Lightroom CD into the shredder and then post this SHAM on every ADOBE forum I can find.
I have experienced the out of memory error 11 times today. I am working with 30,000+ images in Lightroom 1.1 on XP, but only looking through 58 files while doing an import of 100 files I get the “OUT OF MEMORY A2” error. This looks suspiciously like another of the, now famous, debug errors used by the developers to track the ‘pain’ issues. I would challenge Adobe that they know EXACTLY why this happens, a limitation in the programming techniques for their chosen development platform is highlighting issues in the Windows Memory sub-system and they cannot do diddly squat about it… they are just ‘attempting’ to clean up memory leaks where they can, by putting markers (A2) into the code. It would seem that they are down a creek without the proverbial paddle.
Tom Hogarty & ADOBE listen up… stabilize the memory issues stop listening to your marketing bods who are probably leaning over your shoulder as I write these words. You are going to suffer at the hands of Aperture and Capture One if you dont get your act together. I have used both of the above with little or NO errors at all.
Tell us ADOBE why do none of your engineers or developers talk openly about OOM errors, stop silencing them… lets get a discussion going there are some very capable developers out there willing to help for FREE! Are you mad… admit the problems and get people to help… Open Standards could teach you guys a thing or two!
Remember for everyone of of us that actually has the balls to complain, there are a 1000 who just sit and suffer not knowing what to do!
Fix the OOM issues before you do anything else this week!! Provide an interim 1.1.x update and make people happy they bought ADOBE and above all else remember at the end of the day these people PAY your wages.
…Now where is my Capture One license key…
Damon Knight
Photographer
London

joel marquez — 3:08 PM on June 23, 2008

i want free download trial adobe photo shop only valid 4 1 month i hope can accept.thnks and god bless…[Unfortunately Adobe product tryouts aren’t available this month, due to a weird bug. They’ll return in another week (at the start of July). –J.]